A Yorkshire Christmas (13 page)

“You’ve had a tough life, Noah.”

He shrugged. “I’m luckier than some.”

“That’s not saying all that much.”

“Don’t feel too sorry for me,” he said lightly, but she heard a warning in those words.

He didn’t want her pity, and she could hardly blame him. She wouldn’t want it either.

“I love living in Ledstow,” he continued, “and Ayesgill Farm will always be my home.”

And, Claire realized, there was a warning in those words, too. A reminder of how different their lives were, of how whatever was between them—and Claire wasn’t remotely sure what that was—it wouldn’t and couldn’t go anywhere.

Not, at least, without one of them changing. A lot.

“I’ll go get Molly,” she murmured, and left Noah in the kitchen.

‡

T
hey made cookies
in the morning, and ate the shortbread right out of the oven, burning their fingers. Then Claire found a CD of Christmas music, and they sang along to favorite carols and songs before heading outside to check on the sheep. Noah explained the basics of animals husbandry to Molly as they walked, gratified at how interested she seemed to be, thankful for Claire by his side.

It was, he decided, as he got ready for the Christmas Eve service at church, just about the best day he’d ever had.

It was already getting dark when they headed out in the Land Rover to the parish church in the middle of Ledstow. The narrow high street was strung with fairy lights, with a massive Christmas tree outside the village’s lone pub, The Fair Maiden. Noah saw Claire smile at the decorations, and he wondered how Ledstow’s few attractions would measure up to life in the big city.

For a day or a week, probably, village life would seem charming. But for longer? For a life?

And how on earth could he be thinking like that, so soon?

He parked the car on the high street across from the village post office shop; Claire glanced in its bow windows with a little smile before they all went through the lych-gate and then down the path that led to the church with its square Norman tower, the bells ringing out merrily, calling everyone to the service.

The church was nearly full as they entered, a massive Christmas tree at the front, and bunches of holly and evergreen tied to the end of each pew. Noah breathed in the scent of evergreen and dust and incense, a combination peculiar to the church and one that reminded him of his childhood. The last time he’d been in church, he realized, was for his mother’s funeral.

As if sensing the nature of his thoughts, Claire glanced over and gave him a quick, reassuring smile. They all filed into a pew at the back and Noah glanced blindly down at his service sheet with its printed words to several well-known Christmas carols.
Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.

The words fit, he thought, for his life right now. For once, things looked bright.

The service started and everyone stood to sing. Noah glanced around at the people in the church; he recognized a fair few of them as Ledstow lifers like he was. A lot of people, he realized, he hadn’t connected with. Blokes he used to go to the pub with, for the occasional pint; friends of his mother’s, who had baked them casseroles and pies when she had died. Somehow, over the lonely course of his life, he’d let them all slip away. Prison, he supposed, would do that to a person. Since getting out six and a half years ago, he hadn’t wanted to show his face all that much. Everyone knew where he’d been, and he didn’t know what they believed. Besides, he’d been dealing with his father’s decline into Alzheimer’s, and then just keeping the farm afloat.

Now, as he sung the words to the first hymn,
O Come All Ye Faithful
, he exchanged nods and smiles with a few of the people around him. Each one felt, in its own small way, like a blessing.

When he sat down again, he took Molly’s hand. She glanced at him, surprised, but didn’t pull away. And then, because he wanted to, he took Claire’s hand, too. He even gave it a little squeeze.

She squeezed back and they sat there, the three of them in the pew, holding hands, while the music washed over him along with a deep, newfound peace.

*

Claire held Noah’s
hand all through the service, and then took hold of Molly’s afterwards, as they wandered back to the refreshment table where mini mince pies, shortbread, and punch had all been laid out. Noah had stayed back to chat with a man who looked about his age, and who had clapped him on the shoulder in greeting. Claire had the sense that this was big for Noah, that this wasn’t just a casual friend he saw all the time, but some kind of homecoming. Smiling at Molly, they took a cookie each and went to look at the Sunday school display board.

The service had been beautiful. Claire couldn’t remember when she’d last been to church, and certainly not a church like this, ancient and lovely, clearly a center of the community. A few people said hello and asked if she were visiting, and after getting into half a dozen friendly conversations, Noah rejoined them. He looked, Claire thought, rather adorably shell-shocked.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes. It’s just been awhile since I’ve seen… well, anyone.” He smiled ruefully. “I usually keep my head down, stay on the farm.”

“Nice to get out?” Claire surmised, her eyebrows raised, and Noah nodded.

“When we get home,” Molly asked, tugging on both their hands, “can we hang our stockings?”

Noah and Claire exchanged glances. Neither of them had discussed what would happen after today, if Claire would spend Christmas with them. And while just yesterday she had been worried about whether she was insinuating herself into Noah and Molly’s lives, wondering if she were being stupid or desperate or both, now the answer seemed easy. Obvious.

“I suppose we can,” she told Molly. “If we have stockings?”

“There might be some up in the storage loft,” Noah answered. “We had them when I was a kid.”

“Then the answer is yes,” Claire said, glancing at Noah just to make sure, and he nodded. When they’d all got in the old Land Rover, Claire asked him, “Are there any special traditions your family had for Christmas Eve? Special meals or…?”

“We always had shepherd’s pie on Christmas Eve,” Noah said with a little laugh. “I’d forgotten that. Kind of an in-joke.”

“Shepherds eating shepherd’s pie,” Claire surmised with a smile. “While they watched their flocks by night.”

“All seated on the ground,” Noah answered solemnly, and Claire let out a laugh.

“I don’t even know what Christmas carol that is.”

“I think it’s actually called ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night.’”

“That makes sense.”

Both laughed again, grinning at each other like goons, while Molly piped up, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Back at the farm, Noah went to find the stockings while Claire looked in his mother’s cookbook for the recipe for shepherd’s pie. It looked like a simple dish of ground beef or lamb mixed with gravy and topped with mashed potatoes. Molly helped her to make it, peeling potatoes and chopping an onion. They worked in happy, quiet companionship, and a few minutes later Noah came into the kitchen, bearing a box.

“I found the stockings.”

“Let’s see,” Molly cried, and Claire caught the half-peeled potato that threatened to roll off the counter. Noah withdrew several Christmas stockings from the box; Claire could see how lovingly they’d been made, hand-knit with pictures stitched on each—lambs for the boys, a ram for the father and a ewe for his mother.

“Oh, they’re so sweet,” she exclaimed and Molly took one of the stockings decorated with a lamb. “Can I have this one?”

“Of course,” Noah said, and briefly rested his hand on top of Molly’s head.

They hung the stockings in front of the fireplace in the sitting room while they waited for the shepherd’s pie to cook. Claire sat on the sofa with Noah while Molly carefully hung hers, arranging it this way and that. Noah had draped his arm along the back of the sofa, and his fingers were just barely brushing Claire’s shoulder. She was acutely aware of that tiny touch, longed to lean into it, into him, and rest her head against his shoulder. She resisted, but only just.

They ate at the big pine table in the kitchen, and Noah got out some candles from the box of Christmas decorations and put them in the middle, along with some holly and evergreen for a centerpiece.

As Claire sat down, the candlelight flickering over Noah and Molly’s faces, she marveled at how she’d got to this point. She wanted to tell Noah this was the best Christmas she’d ever had, but she was afraid it might sound too silly, too eager.

But maybe it was time to stop feeling afraid.

They ate dinner and Claire washed up while Noah took Molly out to the barn. She stood in the middle of the tidy kitchen, one hand resting on the railing of the Aga, and thought,
I could like this. I could live like this
.

New York City and her job at Stirling, felt far away, as distant as the moon, and just as cold and barren. Would she miss her friends if she left New York? Yes, of course she would.

Would you miss Noah more? And Molly?

“You are being crazy,” she said aloud.

There could be no denying that this time with Noah and Molly was special, even magical. But it was Christmas and they’d both been alone, and it didn’t necessarily mean that anything they were feeling was actually real. That it could last.

The back door opened and Noah and Molly came in, stamping the snow from their boots.

Claire turned to them with a smile, and tried her best to banish her crazy thoughts.

A little while later Noah got Molly settled in bed and Claire sat curled up on the sofa in front of the fire in the sitting room. She’d thought about leaving when Noah and Molly had gone upstairs, but she’d been reluctant to go back to Holly Cottage and spend the evening alone and… well. Pretty much that.

Noah came downstairs, smiling as he caught sight of her sitting there before clapping a hand to his forehead, his expression turning to one of almost comical dismay.

“I still don’t have a present for Molly!”

“Oh, no.” Claire frowned. They’d been so busy doing Christmassy things, they’d forgotten about presents. Not, she acknowledged, that presents were that important, but… Molly needed something under the tree.

Noah came and sank onto the sofa next to her. “I thought about a present this morning, but I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t want to just take her out to the shops and have her pick something. That seemed so soulless.”

“There must be something,” Claire said. “It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Trust me, I know that. It’s the thought that counts, as trite as that can sound.”

“And I haven’t put any thought into it,” Noah said. His face set into resigned lines. “The truth is, until this week, I’ve been a pretty nothing dad.”

“You didn’t have a lot of opportunity—”

“Even so. I could have pressed for more time with Molly. I could have made our Saturdays more special somehow. I just kept it the way it was because…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

Claire prompted softly, “Because?”

“Because I was so overwhelmed with everything else,” Noah said on a sigh. “With caring for my dad and taking care of the farm. And because I was scared of messing things up. Messing her up.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Still doesn’t make it right.”

“No.”

They were silent for a moment, their legs brushing as they sat on the sofa, the only sound the crackle of the fire as the logs settled in the grate.

Finally Noah turned to her, smiling tiredly. “So what am I going to do? What can I give her?”

“Do you know what she’s interested in?”

He shrugged, helpless. “Dolls? Toys? She looked like she was drawing earlier, when I went up to her bedroom.”

“She was drawing when I saw her over by Holly Cottage yesterday morning,” Claire said. “Maybe something to do with that?”

“The shops are closed—”

“She might like something that was yours when you were little,” Claire suggested. “A piece of her history.”